MONTREAL — In Europe, the humour of Dieudonné M’bala M’bala has come to be seen as so toxic that public venues regularly shun him. On Tuesday, pressure from local authorities forced the French comic to scrap a show in Brussels. A performance in March is under investigation by Belgian police as possible anti-Semitic hate speech. Last year, the mayor of Angers in France blocked Dieudonné, as he is known, from using an auditorium there, forcing him to perform outdoors on the city outskirts.

But in Montreal, the city’s largest concert promoter has rented a prime downtown theatre to Dieudonné for four performances next week of the same show under investigation in Belgium. And tickets are going fast.

‘It is well-known that Dieudonné’s trademark is not humour but hatred toward Jews’

In a letter last month to the promoter Evenko, which is part of the Montreal Canadiens operation, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, questioned why the company was providing Dieudonné wih a stage at the Corona Theatre.

“It is well-known that Dieudonné’s trademark is not humour but hatred toward Jews,” Luciano Del Negro, the organization’s vice-president (Quebec) wrote. “That is why the French courts have on several occasions found him guilty of inciting hatred.” Mr. Del Negro said established promoters now steer clear of Dieudonné to such an extent that “he is reduced to playing in his own theatre or in obscure performance halls.”

The letter noted that Dieudonné’s current show, Rendez-nous Jésus (Give us back Jesus), has been branded “a long litany of anti-Semitic comments” in the Belgian press. An article in Le Soir in March said it featured Holocaust denial, slurs against the Talmud and the comment that Hitler was “a nice boy.”

The Montreal performances come as he is promoting his first feature film, L’Antisémite, which was subsidized by the Iranian regime. The trailer for that film shows a character played by Dieudonné acknowledging he has the “sickness” of anti-Semitism. “It’s clear the Jews control everything – the media, finance, politics,” he says. “We no longer have a choice. We must exterminate them.”

When the French anti-racism group Licra sought to have the film and the trailer banned last month, its lawyer called it a dangerous work that “defends the Holocaust,” the Agence France Presse reported. Dieudonné’s lawyer responded that it was “slapstick comedy” with a cathartic value. In the end the judge ruled there was no urgency to prevent the sale of the film, despite its “insidious and particularly excessive nature.”

PATRICK KOVARIK / AFP files

Pascal Bachand, manager of the 589-seat Corona, said Wednesday that he was not authorized to speak about the Dieudonné show and referred questions to Evenko. Messages left with the company were not returned.

David Ouellette, associate director of public affairs for the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, said Evenko acknowledged in a letter last week that it had made an error in renting its theatre to Dieudonné.

‘They told us it was clearly not their intent to offer a tribune to any form of racism or anti-Semitism’

“They told us it was clearly not their intent to offer a tribune to any form of racism or anti-Semitism,” Mr. Ouellette said. “They pledged that they would be reviewing the process by which they deal with foreign artists like this, that they would be more vigilant in the future.”

Ostracized from the mainstream, Dieudonné now thrives on portraying himself as a victim of Jewish groups and authorities. Announcing the cancellation of the Brussels show on his web page Tuesday, he said the Belgian government “decided to put its foot down and ban me from the capital at all costs.” On Wednesday, he announced plans to move the cancelled show to another location and accompanied it with a photo of him with the hat and braids of an orthodox Jew.

The letter of complaint from the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs to Evenko was passed along to Dieudonné, and he posted it on his Facebook page, complete with contact information for Messrs. Del Negro and Ouellette. “Montreal. I’m coming!!!” he wrote. “Shame on the association below that again today calls the Corona Theatre incessantly to try to have my show cancelled.”

The comments from his fans that followed included a number of anti-Semitic remarks. Mr. Ouellette said he and Mr. Del Negro received “several threatening emails and hateful messages” after their letter appeared on Facebook.

Although Evenko said it could not cancel its rental to Dieudonné, Mr. Ouellette said he is satisfied that public opinion in Quebec is turning against the French comic.

“In Quebec, it took some time for the media and the entertainment world to catch up with the controversies and with the primary anti-Semitism that has become the trademark of Dieudonné,” he said. But now he is confident that Dieudonné appeals to “a niche audience and he no longer benefits from the sympathies of mainstream Quebec society.”

Chances that Evenko would book him into the Corona again are “very slim,” he said. “He’s being squeezed to the margins, where he belongs.”

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